We’ve been in Tucson for exactly one week. We’ve gone out every day – morning, evening, all day long – and every time we’re out we scan the desert’s scrub, the washes, and the roadsides for javelina. Today, we’ve finally accepted the fact that these fat, smelly animals are a lie, and do not exist. At all.
“They’re everywhere!” people assured us. “They get into my trash bins,” one man said. Signs at Pima Air and Space Museum warned us we might encounter some. But we didn’t. Why? Because they don’t exist.
You “may,” but you won’t.
Like the illusive jackalope, they’re a myth perpetrated on gullible tourists. You, like us, probably saw jackalope in backwoods diners, their antlered bunny heads hanging on the wall like some rare and desirable trophy. And you, like us, probably believed –oh, innocent you! – they could, maybe, be real.
There was a time when sailors making years-long voyages believed they were seeing mermaids, and told their loved ones back home about these sirens of the sea. What embarrassment they must have felt when those who took to the water for short excursions only found manatees.
We share that shame, having rejoiced at seeing herds of javelina that simply fell under the category of wishful thinking. Each time, they’ve turned out to be brown, barrel-shaped cactuses.
Not javelina.
And, like manatees and mermaids, that’s probably exactly how the not-trueness of javelinas got started. They’re both brown and prickly, and you don’t want to get too close to them when you’re out hiking in the desert.
We didn’t want to draw the only logical conclusion (javelina = lie) so Simon suggested we make double use of a visit to Seguaro National Park West, which we hadn’t seen yet, and enjoy the park as evening drew close, then stay on until dusk; prime javelina hours.
We made a point of asking for expert advice when we reached the park’s Visitor Center, four minutes before it closed. Where, for the love of gawd, should we go to see the illusive herbivore that looks like a pig but isn’t?
Perfect javelina territory. No javelinas.
“Just go right out to the overlook here,” our good man told us, pointing at a second-story platform connected to the center. “They travel up and down the wash just beyond it in the evening.”
Plenty of room for a stampede.
Yay! Finally – FINALLY! – our dream of achieving this precious sighting would come true!
Binoculars and cameras at the ready, we marveled at the sunset that lit up the sky like fire in the direction of California and Mexico, while scanning the wash for activity.
An hour later it was so dark we couldn’t have seen a javelina even if it really did exist. The lie was revealed.
Sure, we saw a “dead” one along the highway on our way to San Xavier del Bac Mission, but it was probably just a stuffed toy thrown out the car window by some careless child. We no longer believed.
We have one more week in Tucson, but frankly, our hearts are hardened. There is only so much pain and disappointment we can take.
Tucson is only 70 miles from the U.S. border with Mexico, and the history in this area is rich with native peoples, changing land ownership with “New Spain,” and the missionaries who came to Arizona with “saving souls” for God in mind.
And therein lies a moral dilemma.
We had soaked up Tucson’s natural side with a visit to Saguaro National Park East and a trip up Mount Lemmon the day before, where the views and an unexpected wildlife sighting were thrilling starts to our touring.
Saguaro National Park is split into two locations; East and West. East isn’t overly blessed with saguaro cactuses due to a killing freeze in 1962.
Simon: “I don’t think I can get the mountains in.” Susan: “How about if I do this?”
It’s a wild and rugged land, with more than just saguaro cactuses. O’odham tribes used the gangly ocotillo cactus on the right for building.
This shows the road going up Mount Lemmon. There were probably more saguaro cactuses on the mountain than there are in Saguaro N.P. East.
We saw two baby mule deer hiding in the underbrush as we were driving back down Mount Lemmon. Only one can be seen in this photo.
After a quiet day “at home,” the next day, we then headed south toward what was once New Spain territory (along with Puerto Rico, Cuba, Florida, what is now the southern U.S., the Philipinnes, and Central America as far south as Costa Rica), then Mexico, but now part of southern Arizona.
Spain was big on evangelizing, and many missionaries were sent to its dependency, with San Xavier del Bac Mission (completed in 1797) being one of the churches that sprang up to bring the natives to Jesus. I’m not going to go all preachy, though I surely could. Instead, let the Mission’s plaques do the talking: Jesuit Padre Eusebio Francisco Kino “served two majesties – the Church and the Crown. For the Church, the Mission saved souls and spread the Christian faith. For the Crown, they served as training grounds for native people to learn their assigned role as subjects of the King and citizens of a growing New Spain.”
“A mission was much more than a church; it was an entire community designed to teach European ways of life to people living on lands claimed by Spain.”
So much to unpack about that, isn’t there, when compared to the history of those “people living on lands claimed by Spain,” who had successfully thrived in the area for thousands of years. When I asked the docent at San Xavier what the Tohono O’odham tribe’s spiritual culture was like before the arrival of the missionaries, he said, “They were used to converting.”
We set all of that aside and entered each of two churches with the idea that we were experiencing historical places. Let’s take a stroll through San Xavier del Bac first.
The tower on the right doesn’t have a dome because (say it with me) they ran out of money.
The rainbow is an important image to the O’odham, signifying unity, among other things, so it was used in the entry’s archway.
It’s impossible not to notice the two animals flanking the altar. They look like weird cousins of those flying monkeys in The Wizard of Oz, but they’re really lions. Why so wonky-looking? Because the artists who created them had never seen lions, and only had a verbal description of a lion to work from.
According to the docent, the original lions were stolen. These were funded by a woman who sits on the board of directors. She hired Mexican craftsmen to carve the wooden statues, then she let the wood cure for a year, applied gold leaf, and, six years later, these beasts took their place on the altar. That woman? Former U.S. Representative Gabby Gifford’s mother.
The church honors Mary, mother of Jesus. Here, her dress includes an important O’odham concept through two embroidered “Man in the Maze” images, one on her gold vestment and one on her skirt.
Those round, gold images represent the Man in the Maze.
Made of wood and without embellishment, this statue honors Kateri Tekakwitha, the only Native American to have been recognized as a Catholic Saint.
It’s a beautiful church filled with contrasts, arguably rife with cultural appropriation, and it has the devotion of those who worship here. It reminded us of a mission church we visited in Arizona many years ago, on a Reservation that was home to the poorest of the poor. When we commented on the immense wealth that could have fed the community and its children for decades, one of the parishioners said, “Yes, there is a great deal of wealth here, but we find solace and relief from our difficult lives in this place of such beauty.”
Who are we to say that’s wrong? Perspective matters.
Tubac – a little “village” of shops, restaurants, galleries, and a museum – was next along I-10, and we had a little wander and some lunch there. We try not to bring any more weight onboard Fati, so we admired the artists’ creativity, then headed south again.
Simon had the breakfast burrito crammed full of…well…everything.
Susan had the pulled pork, and Ruthie ate the bun.
Tumacácori National Historic Park features one of the areas other missions, the oldest in Arizona. Nearly 200 people lived here at one time, and the grounds included orchards, fields, gardens, homes, a “convento” (shared workspace and governmental center, not a nunnery), and a cemetery, as well as the church.
The mission church is on the left, and a later adobe ruin is on the right.
The bell tower on the upper right-hand side of the building isn’t a ruin. It was never finished, as the parish ran out of money before they could complete it.
The church façade originally boasted bright colors – blue, red, yellow, and orange – in the Spanish style, but you can’t really see the colors today.
Tumacácori makes no bones about what Spain’s mission was: “All aspects of daily life were subject to transformation – food, language, clothing, agriculture, and religion.” There is a term for that sort of “transformation” of entire groups of people, and as much as we enjoyed immersing in the history as we walked around, it was hard not to think about the O’odham’s lives before and after “transformation.”
The interior is in pretty rough shape, but it does show the layers involved in creating the building.
The Sanctuary was also painted and stenciled in bright designs, some of which can still be seen, albeit in faded form.
The squares were “frames” for religious imagery.
After Tumacácori was abandoned in 1848, the Sacristy became a refuge for cowboys, soldiers, Mexicans, and gold-rush era fortune hunters during inclement weather. Soot from their fires can still be seen on the ceiling, and their names are still on the walls around the door.
Lousy photo, but the black is soot from cooking fires.
Lousy photo, but these are some of the signatures.
The cemetery bears silent witness to the devastation Apache raids and several epidemics wrought on the community. Most of the human beings originally buried here were children under the age of five.
The ki – the O’odham word for house – provided shelter, while the outdoor wa:ato (brush enclosure) was the place for gathering together and for cooking. The O’odham still sometimes build homes from mesquite branches, ocotillo sticks, the ribs of saguaro cactus, and mud.
The convento was originally much, much larger. Built of adobe, most of the long, low expanse of it has slowly “melted” away. Now, only a small section (once a storeroom) is still standing.
The mission was abandoned for a year after an O’odham uprising against the Spanish and an intrusive neighboring tribe. Jesuit priests returned in 1753, were expelled in 1767, and were replaced by Franciscans who continued evangelizing until 1822.
The places we visit become a part of us, and, as small pieces of historical information are assembled into a greater picture, we find ourselves contemplating the story that greater picture tells.
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